Art of Subconscious Illusion
by Ruin Takada
Summary: The day at Princeton-Plainsboro started like any other for House: A seriously ill mental patient transfers in, claiming to be able to see every crime a person had committed and that he was the "New Kira". Is he right, and what's really going on? DISCONT
1. Tension

**Hey, guys! How are ya? Well, due to some random, almost inexplicable reason, I've decided to write this Death Note and House, MD crossover. I know it may sound pointless at first, but that's just me. Anyways, if the summary sounds good, and you like this chapter, please put up with it! If you're not a shonen-ai fan, and you don't like, then just don't read. If any scientific jargon confuses you, and you're not sure what it means, then just ask, and I just may add a definition in an author's note at the beginning.**

**So, just read and review when you're done, and PLEASE ENJOY!!!**

Chapter I

Tension

The light shone bright in Examination Hall 1, the light from the fluorescent overhead lights blinking occasionally. The students sat in their seats in silence, except for the rare cough from the blonde haired girl in the third row, which echoed around the hall, making the nervous students wince every time. Even the invigilator at the front was feeling the tension as it emanated off of the students.

Looking at his watch, the invigilator signalled to the three people at the front, who then began handing out exam papers to the students column by column. "Now, when you've got your exam paper," said the invigilator, surveying the hall, as though scrutinising each and every student one by one, "put your name, candidate number, and centre number in the spaces provided. For this Criminology higher tier exam, you will just need your pen, pencil, eraser and yourself. Remember, read the question carefully before answering and make sure to right legibly. I'm sure you all know the drill!"

Looking up at the clock and watching the second hand tick closer to exam start, the blinking lights and the sound of a pencil tap adding to the tension, the blonde haired girl in the third row coughed again, her throat feeling more itchy and sore with every splutter. "You will be expected to do this exam in silence and within the two hour time limit." He looked at the blonde haired girl pointedly, making her shut up.

"Now," he said, smiling – or was that a sneer? – "Your test… starts… _now_!" And in a flash, everyone picked up their pens, turned over the cover and began scribbling furiously, all of them sure that they'd be facing some sort of wrath from the _evil invigilator_ if a below average was scored.

An hour into the test and the blonde haired girl was still coughing loudly, stopping her writing every few minutes to lift her hand to her face and cough. Despite this though, the sound still echoed throughout the hall, getting harsher and harsher, the lights blinking more and more, and the sounding of the nervous pencil tap against wood adding to the tumult. Finally, she stopped, lifting her hand away to show blood. Scared, she put her bloody hand up, only to find that someone else had caught the invigilator's attention: a tall brown haired boy was walking to the front, test paper in hand, his left hand twitching slightly.

The invigilator walked towards him, placing a gentle hand on the boy's left arm, "What are you doing?" he muttered quietly, trying not to disturb the others, "You've still got an hour to finish the test, yet!"

"No," replied the boy, "I'm finished." The hand twitched again, this time the spasm running through the arm. The invigilator noticed, and tightened the grip on the boy's arm.

"Are you okay? Is anything wrong?"

The boy's hand flexed at this, and he smiled like the devil. "No," He said, his voice almost a whisper, "there's nothing wrong with me…" Suddenly, in one quick movement and barely a blink, the invigilator was pinned against the wall, the boy holding him by the collar. The three people at the front dropped to the ground in fright, and the students looked up from their papers in unison, unable to believe what they were seeing.

"But there is something wrong with _you_." Sneered the boy. It was a hushed voice, but one that echoed around the room with ease. "Every crime you have committed… every person you have hurt… every lie you have uttered to save your own _worthless_ skin…" the same satanic smile creaked through his mouth, his white teeth almost bared. His eyes seemed to glow red in the blinking lights as his fists began to shake. The invigilator didn't – no – _couldn't _say anything; too shocked by the boy's transformation, the only movement he could make being the widening of his eyes.

"Do not worry," the boy sneered, obviously hoping for the polar opposite, "your end shall be swift – your guilt and what conscience you have would have tortured you enough…" One hand leaving his collar, the invigilator almost sighed with relief, but that was soon stopped, as it planted itself at his throat. "However…the soul of that _poor boy_ calls out for at least _some_ degree of pain!" The lights flickered quicker and quicker, the students only able to be onlookers.

The hand clenched tighter, and the man put his hands at the boy's wrist, trying to pull the hand away, but the boy just clenched tighter. "This world is rotting…" he said, lowering his head as though in prayer, "and you can't be part of the revolution." The invigilator gasped, as the seriousness of the boy's intended action hit him.

Suddenly, the flickering of the lights grew stronger, switching on and off, going through the sequence with speed. The boy's eyes widened, his mouth went slack, and with barely a word, he collapsed to the floor, his body convulsing sickeningly. The girls screamed, the three adults picking themselves off the floor to carry out emergency procedures. The students called out to him, trying to make him snap out of it – but being in the middle of a seizure, the boy couldn't respond to them even if he tried.

**Well? Any thoughts? It may seem odd at first but please tune in for the next chapter! If you do have any thoughts, then just leave your comments and I'll read them all. Make them constructive if you can, and if you flame, then please don't be too harsh: I only need flames for yummy jam toast – not a barbecue! Please R&R and SEE YA!!!**


	2. An Epic of Time Wasted

**Wow, the second chapter already! For those of you who know House and love watching his show, then I hope you liked that first chapter, and for those of you who **_**don't**_** know House, and **_**don't**_** watch his lovely show, then you'll do well in knowing that that is how most episodes start: with the patient getting ill. **

**Anyways, like I said earlier, I hope you enjoyed that first instalment, and if you have any questions about that chapter – or this one – then please wait until you have read through this one to give a review. Thank you, and PLEASE ENJOY!!!**

Chapter II

An Epic Of Time Wasted

Making her usual morning rounds of Princeton – Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, Doctor Lisa Cuddy walked into the infamous Doctor Gregory House's office, not at all surprised to see the casually dressed miserable coot lazing about on his swivel chair, his feet resting upon the desk, and his Nintendo DS firmly in his hands. She guessed he was playing on his Mario Karts racing game, as he was moving the DS to and fro, like an F1 driver would his steering wheel.

Pacing the room silently, while waiting for House to notice the intruder in his office, she began moving papers around on his desk, skim reading a couple and putting them into neat piles – she knew that it would drive him crazy later when she'd remind him about the paperwork deadline and he wouldn't be able to find anything he needed.

"Get out of here you crazy bitch!" Cuddy turned to look at him, startled by the sudden insult. She opened her mouth to shout something, but relaxed when she realised he was shouting at the console.

Hearing her intake of breath, House looked up from the console, to see Cuddy standing in his office, her hand still on her heart from the shock. "Oh, don't mind me," he said, smiling, "it's those blasted mushrooms. You know what they're like!"

"No, I wouldn't," she said, her arms akimbo, "but what I _do_ know is that you were meant to be starting your clinic hours about half an hour ago!"

"Oh come on!" he said, not taking his eyes away from the DS, "it's not like they need me to get better – it's near the end of December, so it'll only be colds and indigestion, and goodness knows what else!"

"So, I need you to figure out what that 'what else' is!"

"Fine then, Dr Cuddy: give me _one good reason_ why I should tend to the poor dears!"

"Fine then. Number 1, someone puked in the Waiting Room and we've run out of mops, so the patients will have to be tended to as quickly as possible. Number 2, a number of the kids are coughing up blood, and number 3 if you don't get there now, you'll be going _without _the cane!" And, as quick as a flash, Cuddy leaned forward and picked up the wooden cane from where it laid leaning against the table.

"Hmph! No fair! That was three reasons, and I'm pretty sure I requested just one!"

"Okay, so you give _me_ three good reasons!"

"Absolutely!" House stood up at this, brandishing his finger at Cuddy. "Number 1, everybody lies. Number 2, every patient is so sure they've got something fatal, and won't stop whining and number 3…" House paused, pointing his finger at his own head and tapping it incessantly in an effort to make himself think, "Number 3…" he tried again, but still couldn't give a good reason, "Number 3…aw crap, I'll do clinic hours for you."

"That's what I thought." Said Cuddy, handing the doctor back his cane. With his third leg safely back in his hand, he pocketed the DS and limped out of the office, Cuddy following close behind. Walking in step with him down the corridor – like that wasn't difficult – Cuddy began talking again. "You know, House. That has to be the first time I've seen you speechless. I think I'd like to see that more often."

The lift doors opened, the present occupants being two surgeons in green, a doctor in his white lab coat and two visitors who looked to be a couple, what with how the dark haired east Asian girl had her arms linked with the black haired young man, a pink Nike cap pulled down to hide his face "Yeah," House replied, the pair walking into the lift, "and I'd like to see your _ass_ more often but that isn't likely to happen in the future, now is it?" Cuddy just looked dumbfounded at him, along with the five others in the lift. "Hey, don't blame me!" he put his hands up in mock accusation, "You saw the way they were looking at me!"

The lift doors opened at the clinic, and House and Cuddy stepped off, stopping outside the clinic entrance. House was about to walk through, when Cuddy stopped him. "Oh, and House, before I forget, you've got a date with the local detective in two hours or so – something to do with a missing shipment of pain relief drugs…"

"Yes, yes, I've got the point: Do the clinic hours, cut my dosage."

"That's right, now go get 'em, tiger!"

With a small smile on his face, House limped into the clinic, narrowly avoiding the large puddle of vomit on the floor. The waiting room was packed up, and he was sure now that Cuddy had _not _exaggerating earlier.

"Good morning, tragically ill ones!" he shouted loudly, bringing everyone to his attention. "Did you all have a good Christmas, Hanukkah, El-Hijra or whatever it is you all celebrate?" Some of the patients nodded their heads; glad to finally see a doctor. "Excellent!" replied House, putting his hands together as though in prayer, "then that means you don't need me! For the rest of you miserable suckers, I'm Doctor Gregory House, MD, and I'll be in Examination Room 1!" And with that, he walked into the said room, closing the door behind him.

Half an hour into his shift, and a pretty looking blonde haired teenage girl walked into the Examination room, dressed head to toe in designer fashions. A clipboard and a packet of potato chips were clenched in one hand and a bloody tissue in the other. Sitting down, she coughed loudly into the tissue, a noticeable amount of blood pouring onto it.

"So, as you can see," she wheezed, giving House the clipboard, "this is my main symptom, and apart from that, my face feels really sore!" She then took a seat, keeping the tissue at her mouth the whole time. "Do you know what might be wrong with me?"

Looking through the sheets on the clipboard, House sighed loudly, and said, "According to your medical history, there hasn't been any cases involving cancer in your family, and you've also had your TB shots, so I'm gonna have to take a look down there." House stood up, putting on a pair of latex gloves and picking up a flat piece of wood like a Popsicle stick. He took the bloody tissue out of the girl's hand, placing it on the table. "Now open your mouth and say 'ahh'."

She opened her mouth, and before House could even use the Popsicle stick, Doctor Wilson rushed into the room, his lab coat creased and spotted with blood. He stood wheezing at the door, unable to get his words out.

"Hey, _dude_, have you ever _heard_ of a _thing_ called _knocking_?!" House looked up at Wilson as he said this, wearing a look of fake frustration. Really, he was glad for any sort of distraction from _this_ part of his job.

"S-sorry…about this…but…but…" he was still struggling to get his breath back, and every word took nearly a minute to say.

"Come on, spit it out! I've not got all day." House sat back into his chair, folding his right leg over the other and putting his hands behind his head.

Finally, the man got his breath back. "A seriously ill mental patient just transferred here this morning, and already he's causing havoc."

House suddenly stood back up at that, his attention now grabbed. "Oh? What _sort _of havoc?"

"I don't know. I couldn't understand everything he said. He was shouting something about someone called 'Kira', and 'sins', and next thing I know, five people are injured and an ex-convict on a life-support machine has just had the plug pulled out on him."

"Kira? You mean that serial killer who was captured two months ago after causing most of the criminal population to die from inexplicable heart attacks?"

"The very same, I think. He kept pointing at the ex-convict beforehand and naming every crime he committed, and there's no way he could've known about what the guy did before then."

"Excellent, we've got a crazy guy who probably thinks he's Kira, while at the same time playing doctor on the others!" He rubbed his hands together in glee. Cases this interesting usually only came around about once every blue moon. "So, show me to his room!"

"I can't," sighed Wilson, "he only arrived fifteen minutes ago and hasn't been assigned a room yet. I left him with Dr Foreman and Dr Chase to sort out."

"You _idiot_!" House yelled suddenly, "Have _you_ gone mad, too? How come he's not got a room if he transferred in from another hospital? Surely that detail would've been sorted out over the phone!"

"Dora must have been on duty then!"

"Great! The guy's on the loose, and making homicidal mayhem! He'll be taking out the pharmacy soon!" Wilson was still standing at the door. Obviously, he hadn't completely recovered from the sprint down the stairwell to the clinic. "So, what are you waiting for, an autograph or something?"

So, at speed, Dr Wilson rushed out of the door, leaving House with the blonde haired girl once again. He picked up his cane, and was about to join his friend, when three words from the girl brought him speeding back. "What about me?" she'd asked.

"Oh, you? Don't worry, it's nothing serious." House said, his voice laced with a slight hint of sarcasm, "All those tasty potato snacks you've been eating have made a small incision at the back of your throat, and your coughing is because of the irritation the likes of a paper cut that's there, causing the unusual bleeding."

"Is there anything you suggest?" her voice was timid now – she obviously wasn't used to being spoken down to.

"Yes. Go home, lay off the snacks and get your maid to give you bowls of yummy ice cream instead. I'm sure Mommy and Daddy can afford that after a Gap and plastic surgery fuelled Merry Christmas!"

And with that, he left the girl in her seat, not even bothering to show her out the door.

OOOHHH! That animal! I won't want to meet HIM late at night in a back alley…but then again, neither do most people! So, any questions? This is the first time I've put my learning's of House-humour into practise, so PLEASE TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!!!

**Oh yeah, and for those of you who are wondering about my other works, I'm pretty sure that I've updated on my Death note fan fiction "Like Light to the Flies", and I have already updated on my Hollyoaks one, too. So, please don't tune out, because their will soon be a new instalment of "Art of Subconscious Illusion": your favourite Death Note/House crossover! SEE YA!!!**


	3. Trashed and Scattered

**Wow, what a fast update! I can't believe chapter 3 is up already! I was planning on it being a bit longer, but that unfortunately wasn't possible, considering what I've put already. Anyways, it's probably because of my work experience in the library, (of which it is my last day here as now it is 24/07/09) and the fact that I get three breaks in the day, which are either 20 minutes or 1 hour long, giving me plenty of time to finish this and update it up on here. **

**This chapter is actually quite special…you know why? Because, at some point, I'll be required to use actually Japanese (but it's in Romaji, though) so, at the end, I'll give you the translation, because it's partly important that you know what they say, even though I've put it in Japanese to begin with (the reason being to keep it realistic with the fact that House is based in New Jersey, **_**not**_** Japan! **

**So, like before, if you have any questions or anything you want to say or ask about this chapter, you know what to do! So please R&R like you should and PLEASE ENJOY!!!**

Chapter III

Trashed and Scattered

Once House had managed to make it up the few levels to the main check in, and limp to the nurses' station as fast as his gammy leg could take him, he found himself surrounded by utter mayhem: five people – not including Drs Foreman and Chase – were indeed injured, and the long flat note of a patient's inexistent heart beat rang out from a nearby room – obviously, no one had been able to switch it off, considering the chaos. All of the five injured, House remembered, were from the elevator he had taken with Cuddy that morning, blood seeping from new wounds in various places. Two nurses were tending to the five injured, while Dr Chase tried to calm down a man in his forties, along with his wife, both standing beside an overturned wheelchair, arms around each other in sought comfort and fright.

It was then, while watching the consequences of the mad fifteen-minutes-ago, that House pointed out the mental patient: he was a young East Asian man (probably Chinese or Japanese), with chestnut-brown hair that would've once had a deliberately tussled quality, but was now sticking out manically. His eyes were brown like his hair, and seemed to glow red with psychotic rage. What had also made him easy to spot, was the fact that, of all the people there, of all the lying, cheating people that passed through the Hospital doors, the mental patient had Dr Foreman of all people pinned against the pharmacy-side wall, a wound on the black man's temple glistening dark in the neon lighting of the main check-in. The young man was muttering fiercely at Foreman, his teeth bared in what could only have been described as sadistic loathing. Suddenly filled with mild curiosity, House grabbed something from the Nurses' station desk and hobbled silently towards them, eaves-dropping gleefully.

"…I know the way you act towards your patients…lying, cheating…treating innocents like dirt…" The young man spoke with a slight Japanese accent, and House smiled at his words playfully: if this guy really _could _pull out a person's wrongdoings from nowhere, then he must have the wrong guy! "Taking stupid, irresponsible risks, not even knowing the possible outcomes half the time…or probably just too stoned to tell…Thankfully, Dr Foreman is a better man than you, you drug-abusing hack…"

_Wait, what?_

Suddenly, the young man's left hand stretched out behind him, grabbing Dr House by the throat, squeezing tightly. The young man turned his head to look into House's blue-green eyes, smiling with the same heartless hate. "That's right," he continued, his accent less pronounced now, "I've known everything you've done, ever since I first learned of your existence…you know, those poor people are still needing their pain medication."

"Y-yeah," gasped House, his windpipe painfully constricted, "I'll get right round to that tomorrow."

"I hope you do," the patient smirked, gripping even tighter, "because you're the reason that the world is much more rotten than it would've been without spineless, cowardly, _selfish_ filth like you!"

"Um…like I said-"

"The criminals of the world sully the innocents from the outside, attacking again and again at their defences," His words were slower now, more purposeful in their choosing, yet even more callous sounding for it, "while ignorant public services, negligent law enforcement, and abusive, _second-rate_ doctors like you work from the inside, rotting the world to it's core till there is nothing left but a bitter taste in the apple of society. Thanks to your methods, the better people are slowly dying, slowly disappearing: you are the curse to the little cure we have left!"

"A-a-nd what are you gonna do about it?" House asked cheekily, his face slowly turning purple.

"I'm going to eradicate the filth, like bleach upon mould, like the Angel of Death upon the citizens of Sodom, like-"

"Like Kira on criminals?" House interrupted, smiling slightly despite the situation. At that, the patient let out a growl like a warning wolf, his teeth bared viciously. Looking up to his left, he yelled out to no one.

"Ni otoko-ban mita kudasai, Ryuk!" He suddenly let out a slow, strange laugh that started low, hitting high notes at the end. "Kitanai mono wa sugu shinu*!" The laugh was louder, faster and harder now, almost a maddening yell as it reverberated across the expanse of the hall, scaring all who heard it into silence and motionlessness. They knew what would come next, and apparently…so did he. The two doctors seemed to be lifted inches higher into the air, the young man's grip tightening on their throats, Foreman and House both gasping for air. House's hands shot to the hand around his throat, and he dropped the cane in his effort to release the grip.

The dark haired East Asian girl stood up from her chair – which had been pulled right up to the Nurse's station – and batted away the fussing nurse, who was attempting to stitch up a wound at her hairline. Fear gave her wide child-like eyes a wild look, tears welling up at the corners. "Ani," she yelled, fear making her voice shake, "Otoko wa koroshinai de kudasai!" she ran up to him now, and placed her hands on his shoulders, grabbing his attention, "Satsujinsha dewa arimasen! Hanzaisha dewa arimasen**!"

With those words, the patient let go of the two doctors, letting them drop to the floor like rag dolls. It was his turn to put his hands on her shoulders. Doing so, he gripped them tight, shaking her slowly in sudden panic, "Demo…" he muttered, his voice barely audible, "Kitanai mono wa mada ikite imate, Kitanai mono wa mada ikite imate! †" He was yelling now, shaking the girl harder and harder. She tried to get out of his grip, but he was too strong, and a trail of blood was soon forming from her nose. Her eyes were rolling up into her head: she was losing consciousness, and if the young man didn't release her soon, she'd probably die from the whiplash.

Suddenly, the pair fell to the floor, a crack of wood against flesh resounding throughout the room. The forty-odd year old man and his wife pushed away a stunned Chase and ran up to them, eyes open with fright. At first, they didn't stir, but the girl's eyes soon opened, and she was soon off the floor, having obviously been too frightened to get up at first. The young man, however, stayed where he was, his eyes firmly shut and a bruise forming at the side of his face.

It was then that they noticed the shadow that fell across the unconscious patient, and it's owner: there, standing face-forward towards the little family, was Dr Gregory House, a cane in his right hand which he twirled, and a needle in the other, which was filled with clear liquid. "Oh," he said, smiling, "don't worry, I would've given him the sedative, but well…you know…" he gestured the act of shaking someone, a crazy look on his face with little sound-affects to match, which he ceased once he registered the scared looks on the three people's faces. "This was just quicker." He held up the cane, smiling impishly…well, as impishly as is possible for a forty-odd year old grouchy hermit.

Composing himself, he raised his head, placed a cupped hand to his mouth, yelling, "Clean up on aisle one! Come on, hurry up!" He clapped his hands twice,

and with that, he once again left his clients in utter shock, not knowing that he was being followed, a young man in a pink Nike cap shadowing him in silence.

**Wow, what a fast update! I can't believe chapter 3 is up already! I was planning on it being a bit longer, but that unfortunately wasn't possible, considering what I've put already. Anyways, it's probably because of my work experience in the library, (of which it is my last day here as now it is 24/07/09) and the fact that I get three breaks in the day, which are either 20 minutes or 1 hour long, giving me plenty of time to finish this and update it up on here. **

**As I explained at the beginning of the chapter, I have used Japanese in this chapter, in the form of Romaji (as I don't have anything on here that lets me use kanji or hiragana), and, as promised, I'm gonna give you the translation! As you may have already noticed, I've also added little symbols at the end of each section of Romaji, each appertaining to the translation down here, so flick up and back to get the right translation (they're all in the right order too!)**

***Young man: "Look at these two men please, Ryuk! This filth will die soon!"**

****East Asian girl: "My brother, please don't kill the men! You are not a killer! You are not a criminal!"**

†**Young man: "But…the filth is still living! The filth is still living!"**

**Has that helped? As you can probably tell, the translation is pretty literal, but I think it's fine this way. Do you agree? **

**Anyways, that's it for now, so please R&R and SEE YA till next time!!!**


	4. Chapter IV

Hi! Already, I have for your delectations and delights: Art of Subconscious Illusion, Chapter IV, er…that's it. If you're wondering why this chapter doesn't have a title like the other, then for the time being you'll having to do some investigating and find out! It is actually for a very simple, yet Mello-taking reason (see what I did there!)

**And yes Norwegian Girl, in case you are wondering: yes, your review is the first for this fic, although quite a few people have put it on their favourite stories and story alert lists, so if you love it, I suggest you do the same! -|:{P (the happy moustachioed Frenchman!) **

**Like I always say now, if you have any questions, then please just leave a review, and I can get back to you! So SEE YA and ENJOY!!!**

Chapter IV

Back in his office, and with all thoughts of clinic duty conveniently forgotten, House sat at his cushioned leather swivel chair, rubbing at his throat in earnest with one hand and feeding himself vicodin after vicodin with the other. Drs Chase and Foreman sat in their respective seats around the table, the wound at Foreman's temple held together with little butterfly stitches, while Dr Cameron stood next to the wipe board, her weight predominately on her left leg and her arms crossed in exasperation. In actual fact, she was just frustrated over the fact that a seriously mentally ill foreigner was actually permitted 20 minutes free-reign in which to cause enough havoc to effectively back-track the meticulously thought out hospital system.

For the several minutes while House continued his reiki-style relaxation ritual, a stiff silence dragged on, pronounced even more by the loud ticking of the clock, and the occasional cough.

"So?" asked Chase, wiping boredom-borne sweat from his forehead. After the frantic calling from House to his office, he'd expected a situation that was a _little_ more drastic.

"So what?" asked House, clearly enjoying this sadistic feeling of letting his employees stew in his torturous atmosphere.

"So why did you call us in here? What was the panic?" Foreman asked, "One minute you're calling us in like it's something really important, the next, you're relaxing on your chair like you're having the freaking time of your life!"

"Well," said House, "There was the fact I'd just been strangled half way to cuckoo-land, but then I just realised that I'd put the guy there already myself, and booked him in for…say…" his looked at his watch at this point, "2 hours, 15 minutes and 35 seconds before he gets back. And also, if the scene back there and my _awesome_ theme tune wasn't enough to tell you, we've got a new patient!"

"At least he's not got a concussion…" muttered Cameron, sighing.

"His ego still blankets the whole of New Jersey…" Chase finished, his head sinking into his hands, his elbows resting on the table in blatant fatigue.

"Now that you cleared up the diagnosis of my completely healthy mind-"

"Not speaking too soon of course…" interjected Cameron, half to herself.

"What do we know about our dear little hyena boy?" Lifting his cane from its resting position on the table, he lifted it up, pointing it dramatically at Chase, "Chase, if you could please do the honours!"

"Right," said the surgeon, taking a red folder off the table and opening it up, "According to the medical file that his mother and father left at the Nurses' station before the commotion, our guy is 18 years old, Japanese, and goes by the name of…" Chase paused for a moment, his blond eyebrows raising half-way off his forehead, unsure as to whether he'd read the information right, or if he too had acquired a concussion.

"So?" asked House, impatient as always, "What's his name? I swear, if you don't give me a name, I'll have to call him 'Pookie', and _no one_ wants that!"

Suddenly, Chase burst out laughing, dropping the file and gripping his sides; he just couldn't help himself.

"Hey! I was being serious about the 'Pookie' thing, you know!"

"N-n-no," stammered out Chase, still sniggering, "it's not that. Please, just read it out before I get a _heart attack_!" House, in his conventional frustration, snatched up the file, and read the top bar in silence, taking another pill as he did so. He was half way through the act of swallowing, before he stopped, began to choke, and dropped the file again, coughing and wheezing. Of course, considering his past and present nature, no one offered to pat his back.

"Oh. My. God!" he wheezed, laughing hysterically, finally recovering from the fit. "You'll never guess what his parents were smoking before _he_ was born!"

"Why?" asked Cameron, her arms no longer folded, "What has that got to do with anything?"

"Well," began Chase, filling in for House as he began laughing again, "you'll see, when you learn the kid's name is – get this – _Light_. _Yagami_!"

"Oh. My. God! Ow…" said Foreman, hitting his head on the table in his sniggering fit.

Cameron however, didn't laugh. She just shook her head at the laughing trio, glaring at them with her usual poisonous stare when the others laughed or otherwise made fun of something that she found morally bad to do so.

"Oh come on!" said House, finally noticing his female employee's volunteered vigil. "How is that not funny? This kid is Japanese, and has a name that so stupid, even _Western_ parents won't touch it, and they're usually doped up on _some_ sort of crap! No wonder he's crazy! He probably even _hates_ his parents to boot!"

"I just don't think it's funny, that's all." Cameron replied, her tone more casual that her look.

"Why?" asked Foreman, trying not to laugh, "Is it morally wrong to laugh at a person's name? I know you used to laugh at House's name back when we all first met him!"

"She did?" asked House in mock shock. In reality, he didn't care, as he'd heard all the jokes before, and mainly from Wilson, "If that's how grateful you are, I'm gonna ban you use of my wipe board markers, so scootch away from them now!"

"You never let me use them anyway!"

"And I can see now I was right to do so. Next thing I know, you'll graffiti-ing on it, and commenting on the size of my weenie!"

"Fine…" Cameron moved away from the wipe board, instead sitting on the table with one leg crossed over the other, as her seat had mysteriously disappeared (hence the reason she was standing by the wipe board in the first place).

"As I was saying," she continued, now comfortable with her piece of the table, "I just don't think it's funny because it's just too ironic and fitting for a guy who likens himself to a saviour and has a bigger god-complex than House. Besides, a saviour can be described as a 'light' and it's probably a -"

"Can you please stop talking like I'm not here? I know that's what you want but your wish hasn't come true just yet!" Everyone, of course, ignored that. "Anyway, how can a stranger have a bigger god-complex than me, I'm so much more fitting to be a god: I can grow a beard for one!"

"He may not have beard potential," answered Chase, "but he's already killed one bad guy, maybe more: Even you should know that's what good gods apparently 'do'."

"I'm still cooler." He muttered, mainly to himself.

"If we can all get back the person in question," said a voice from one side of the room, "you'll realise that the situation is a lot more dire than you first thought." At this, House, Chase, Foreman and Cameron followed the direction of the voice, to see a strange man couching crow-like on chair in the shadows: a remarkable thing in itself, as the walls were mainly glass save one or two, and he looked more out of place than a penguin in Africa.

Scared and surprised, House lifted his cane again, this time pointing it at the man, "It's you!" he yelled, "From the elevator! I'd recognise those baggy pants and Nike cap anywhere!" The man in question was indeed wearing the pink Nike cap and baggy pants, but what also made him so distinguishable was that he was also wearing a loose white long-sleeved shirt, and a mask that covered his whole face. The mask itself was reminiscent of a Western stereotypical, almost bordering racial depiction of Jackie Chan. His posture was terrible, with an almost 90 degree slouch, and the way he sat was like a crow alighting on a horizontal post, especially with his pale bare feet (_possibly caused by generalized dystonia?_ House couldn't help thinking). The only thing that could be seen from beneath the cap and mask was a nest of black, straight, unkempt hair that was almost level with his shoulders.

If it wasn't the appearance that shocked the group, it would definitely have been his blunt and downright bold attitude: to even have the _notion_ to think it okay to go into a Doctor of Diagnostic Medicine's office – nay, a _hospital_ – dressed that way, and with such a manner like he owned the place! In that respect, he'd already surpassed House, never mind Cuddy (who actually _did_ run the place).

"If you could please excuse the outfit and such: I am actually trying to help you do your jobs and complete mine at once, and the staring is exceptionally off-putting." His tone was strange and ambivalent: both haughty and welcoming; harsh and soft; like a English gentleman, in the way it reached out a hand, while at the same time reminding you of your place.

"Okay…" said Cameron, trying to understand but failing, "So what makes you think that you are in any way connected to our patient? The only coincidence you share with him is that you were on the scene at the same time he had a major manic episode."

"Actually," he said, putting up an erudite finger, "I am a detective who worked on the Kira case that was solved 2 months ago, so, hearing that there was a young man out there who was claiming to be the successor to that Kira, I felt compelled to investigate. What is more, his father Soichiro Yagami is Chief Detective at the NPA in Japan, who's job it was to solve the case, and whose son – this very same patient – helped solve the case with us before his untimely illness. In short, Light Yagami is my colleague, my other colleague's son, and my fellow in intelligence and familiarity: my best friend."

The Diagnostic team just glared in incomprehension, House staring at the man like he himself was crazy, while Chase stared down at his fingers, trying to see if the new information would make more sense if he counted each relation on his finger, like a child would count the 'greats' of a distant relation on his fingers, in the hopes of greater understanding.

"Also," the man continued, as if this had already sunk in, "I am here on another matter, which involves the surveillance of one Doctor Gregory House over the matter of _a missing shipment of Vicodin pills_. As this is his office, and you are the oldest member here, could I assume that is you…" the faceless man pointed a pale, thin finger at House, before walking up to him and taking his bottle of pain medication out of his fright-frozen hand. "Mr…Vladimir Kolinsky?"

House snatched the precious bottle back from the man, and placed it in his safely guarded jacket pocket, before giving him a warning look. "That man was dead before I borrowed the meds!"

"Wait," asked Foreman, "so Light Yagami and Cuddy weren't kidding about that? I thought that was just a stupid excuse made by this sorry excuse of a fan fiction author, so that he-slash-she had a narrative vehicle to give this nonsensical story what little sense could be had!"

"Yes," muttered House, "I thought so too…" he rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully, as though that would make his presence that much more meaningful to the story (A/N:_ *snort* as if!_).

"How could you even _think_ about doing that?" asked Cameron, in shock and outrage (everyone seems shocked today).

"Just as I was about to say-" mentioned the faceless man, before being interrupted once again.

"_You're_ the one who took them! You're not allowed an opinion on this!"

"IF WE COULD ALL JUST BE QUIET AND STOP FOMULATING INCORRECT PRIORITIES!!!" yelled the faceless man, his shoulders heaving after the large breath he took to shout that mouthful. "We," he said, now calmer, " – particularly I – are here to solve the mysterious cases of the New Kira and the Missing Vicodin Pills, one of which seems to have been solved already. For the other, I will need your skills and cooperation, as the patient in question seems to be a danger to both himself and others, and the condition he suffers from has already gone undiagnosed despite 6 months of immersion in nothing but professional medical care. If you will keep your mouths shut further," he said, for House was on the verge of interrupting, "you may call me Ryuzaki, as I am tired of being referred to all the time as 'the faceless man'. If that is too difficult for you Americans to pronounce even remotely correctly, 'Ryan' will do nicely. You are now allowed to speak."

"Fine," said House, pretending to dust himself off, after that unprecedented telling off, "Poirrot it is!"

***

The world around him swirled pitch black, deep foreboding colours occasionally swimming into view. Like sharp samurai-swords, their ripples of coloured light occasionally sliced through his minds eye, showing images of human suffering through the slit-like wounds, clear light shimmering along the edges, never letting him turn away, never letting him forget: the reasons he could never give up, the reasons he carried on with this futile crusade, the reason he had to be, no, the reason he _was_ Kira, and couldn't be anyone else: not the successful student to his teachers, not the insightful amateur detective to the NPA, not even the perfect, golden son to his parents.

That charade had broken down many moons ago, but not before it had chance to dupe everyone he met. Had he not have been such a good actor, the blow generated by his sudden illness would have been much less, and his parents would have understood completely having witnessed the beginning of such a breakdown firsthand, rather than, conversely bursting into tears from the shock, from the sheer ignorance and disbelief that their perfect, beautiful, intelligent son had the capability – no the mental corruption – to commit such a deed, make such threats and instil such fear upon greater men, making them fear for their lives.

_For them…Mom… Dad… Sayu…_ Light thought, his mind halfway between waking and dreaming, _it must've been like a kick in the teeth. _

Slowly, and mournfully, Light awoke from the compulsory slumber, a sharp pain on the right side of his face jolting as he frowned away the tiredness that still shrouded his mind, for until now he had never felt it with such strength.

_Why does my head hurt?_ _I was in the wheelchair until a moment ago, right? Did I fall out of it, like at the last institution? _

The lesion on his face itched wickedly after nearly an hour of being ignored, intent on punishing the teen for sleeping away the worst of the pain, and so Light lifted up a hand to scratch it – a foolish practice, he knew, considering the good it would do him – yet he couldn't: it was stuck by his side, as though stripped into position on the opposite flank. Looking down, Light sighed and shook his head in annoyance, "Should have known." He wheezed, finally using his voice after what felt like centuries of abusive conduct on his part, "I must've really done something bad to deserve this…or maybe they've accounted for the behaviour at the last institution?"

Light was fastened into a white strait jacket, his arms strapped to opposing sides via long sleeves connected to a brown belt and buckle that encircled the waist. Apart from that, there were the same style belts around the neck, chest and hips, holding him in tight. He tried to sit up properly, but thanks to his ankles being tied to the white bars on either side of the bed, that job was admittedly difficult. It was obvious now that the magnitude of whatever he did must have been seriously bad enough that they didn't want him moving freely – or at all, really.

_**What are ya gonna do now, Light?**_ At this, Light looked over to his left, to see Ryuk standing there, a like black-rimmed grin on his pale face, reminiscent of the Late Ledger's Joker. _**They've got ya tied up like a rabbit, as always, but the glass thing is new: are you gonna sit quietly since you know you'll be spotted, or are you foolish enough to actually break out?**_

Looking around him, he realised that he was in a separate hospital room, surrounded by three plain walls, and a fourth of clear glass: _of course, they must not want to take chances with me. _All the standard hospital furnishings were present, along with a travel bag laying open on a chair, no doubt full to the brim of Light's clothes, toiletries, and a number of books (in both Japanese and English) that he'd collected on his travels from hospital to hospital. Two plastic cups of tea sat on the bedside table on his left, the dark brew still steaming: evidently, his parents and Sayu had only been gone for a few minutes at most, believing him safely knocked out enough that a few minutes away wouldn't do any harm.

"No," Light replied, giving Ryuk one of his million-dollar smiles, "I'll escape: I've got to live up to this country's expectation of me, you know. Besides, Mom and Dad like taking their sweet time at times like this."

With that, he bent his back over, letting his head touch the mattress between his legs, and began to shiver inside the jacket. Thankfully, Light had lost a little weight since the last time he was wearing one of these, and his parents had presumably made sure he was given the same size jacket.

Ever since Light was first made to wear a straitjacket back in June when he first became ill and strangled the invigilator, Light had been allowed 6 months in which to learn how to get out of these things, as he was always made to wear one at every hospital – as his condition was largely undiagnosed, and Light's treatment of the staff was always threatening at best, they just didn't know what else to do with him, as Soichiro and Sachiko wouldn't allow anything more severe. Now, 6 months on and 52 straitjackets later, Light's skill in the art of escapism was almost on level with the Great Houdini himself, and so it had been barely five minutes when Light was out of the jacket and undoing the knots around his ankles.

Once free, he stepped lightly off the bed and began changing out of the standard green hospital-grade gown, replacing it instead with his favourite beige-y coloured trousers and black and white sweater, slipping his house slippers over his bare feet. Once happy with his appearance, he began rummaging through the bag again, taking out instead an A5 size blue notepad and a HB pencil – both of which were bought when Light was at a mental hospital in Florida where he was treated by a neurologist who had a penchant for molesting his patients, the knowledge of which had affected Light so greatly that he couldn't physically speak until he'd been transferred somewhere else in an entirely different state.

Placing the notepad on the bedside table, he quickly wrote down two notes onto the first clear page: one in Japanese for his family, and the second in English for any doctors or nurses that might come in. And, satisfied with the current situation, Light opened the siding glass door, and walked out of the room, hands in pockets and a smile on his face: the epitome of Masked Serenity. Looking over his shoulder at the lone shinigami, and hovering in the doorway, Light gave him a little wink, saying, "Stay right there, Ryuk: It'll be strange if I'm walking around talking to you. Unlike with you, others can hear me speak."

_**Suit yourself, Light. See if I care. **_He then proceeded to take an apple from a separate compartment in Light's bag, stuffing it inside his mouth and chewing it down in one gulp.

_That's my shinigami. _

And continuing to walk out, Light didn't look back, only stopping momentarily to allow the passage of a full white body bag on a gurney, no doubt to be wheeled out the way they first came in. Then, once it had passed safely away, no one did or said anything as he climbed into an empty lift, a small laugh of his echoing around the small space as the lift doors closed.

So, what do you think? As you can see, I decided that the short chapters I've been giving you weren't generous enough, and I felt like I was being stingy, so I decided to give you all a large helping, to be nice! Plus, I did need to sort a few things out and confirm the involvement of the Yagami family (and particularly Light) and Ryuzaki, which is why I've made it longer.

**So, please stay tuned for the next chapter because, with any luck, I may have it up before I go away for two weeks and leave you all for a while. The last time I did this, admittedly, I got really behind on my schedule, and I ended up not doing as much on my stories as I wanted, hence all the bad progress with them all, for which I apologise profusely. **

**Ah well, that's enough from me, so please R&R and SEE YA!!!**


	5. Almost Easy

**And once again, we have another generous portion from your favourite (I hope) author, KuraiSeken! I love how you guys have been adding me to your favourite stories and story alerts, however, I'll have to warn you that if you keep doing that, I may actually get a swollen ego, and if that happens, my writing skill may go a bit lax. But, there is something you can all do to stop that: keep sending in reviews as well as adding me to alerts, and if you add in useful advice on how to improve my writing, then all the better! **

**Oh yeah: big news on the US Live Action Death Note movie: the writers are going to follow the original manga rather than the Japanese Live Action and I think we've found our Matsuda. The guy who the casters have got in touch with is called Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and he played Cameron James in **_**10 Things I Hate About You **_**and he's also in **_**500 Days of Summer**_**. After seeing a few pictures of him, and after seeing the movie **_**10 Things**_**, I do believe that he will be the perfect Matsuda…but I suppose we'll have to wait until the Fall of 2010 to find out. So far, we don't know who our Light is, although the rumours that Zac Efron of **_**High School Musical**_** has secured the position are still going strong. Oh, here's a topic for reviews: who do you think should play the Super sleuth L in the movie? Some have said that they should bring in Kenichi Matsuyama of the Japanese movies, teach him good English and make him Honorary L, but there would be the problem with his accent, which would make his sound silly rather than awesome. Me, I will prefer anyone as long as he is good-looking, stoops and crouches well, and is British with an Upper-class British accent too, like Colin Firth's on Pride and Prejudice (but that's just me). **

**Oops, I think I've talked for too long here, so I'll let you read this nice long chapter that you've all been waiting for, and that someone may have identified me as lazy for, so please just enjoy, and remember to leave reviews!**

Chapter V

Almost Easy

"So," said Foreman, sitting back in his seat in slight boredom, "We've already ruled out Schizophreniform Disorder because the symptoms have been going on for longer than a month, and without careful investigation of the symptoms or interviews with the patient, we can't work out much else."

"Or," suggested House, his feet up on the table in his swivel chair, "we can just go through the medical dictionary and rule out everything he hasn't got from there. At least then we can cover from A-Z. Let's think…it can't be environmental, or it would've cleared up once he was in the hospital back in June, and it can't be bacterial because he's been so far away from his house for so long that, let's face it, the symptoms would've probably gotten better with any cocktail of drugs that those other doctors gave him-"

"Actually, House, we are closer to the answer than we first thought, and there are probably only three or four conditions that it can possibly be," Ryuzaki was crouched in his seat, a little red lollipop – the sort given as treats to young children who come to the clinic – sticking out of his mouth with the stem hanging out like a cigarette and his mask pulled put so that only his mouth was visible, "all we need to do is remind ourselves of the symptoms, and do as Foreman kindly suggested."

"What makes you so sure?" asked Chase, almost exasperated, standing by the wipe board (although Cameron was originally next to it and therefore in a more convenient spot, House took her previous taunting of his name ill-heartedly and banned her from ever going near the wipe board, leaving Chase to do it, as technically he was a mere surgeon and therefore not much use for anything other than writing things down (see the previous chapter for a little more detail.))

"Well, my line of work requires me to have knowledge in the way of Psychology and Psychiatry, which helps me determine not only whether a person is lying, but also if given statements are down to mental illness and are therefore untrustworthy. I also get extra pay for every mental unstable person that I manage to successfully diagnose."

"He's sure." Concluded Cameron, sitting in Chase's chair with her arms folded, "So far, we can definitely say that Light Yagami's symptoms are: Major manic episodes with Psychotic undertones; delusions of grandiose; hallucinations; distorted sense of self slash self worth and clairvoyance in the form of retrocognition." As she spoke, Chase wrote down each symptom on the colourless plastic board, the red marker making equally red shadows on the floor behind it. With the writing of each symptom, Chase would mutter under his breath, until the word 'retrocognition' was written, with miniature stabs for each dot.

"Also," piped up Ryuzaki, taking the lollipop from out of his mouth and leaving the mask in it's jaunty position, "don't forget to add the part about his strong sense of justice, or black and white thinking: that's an important symptom related to such conditions as Borderline Personality Disorder – also known as BPD – Bipolar Disorder and Schizoaffective Disorder. Such a childish thought process can't be borne from such a Law-involved father alone, and if he has these thoughts without a manic episode, we won't need to add it later." Obediently, Chase began writing it down, muttering under his breath once again as he did so.

"Wait a second," said Foreman, rubbing his brow, making Chase's pen stop in mid-jot-and-tittle-making, "what do you mean by 'hallucinations', Cameron? Unless I'm mistaken, House stealing Vicodin and acting like a general jerk isn't a hallucination – despite how much Cuddy prays for it."

"Foreman's right," concurred Chase, "although he did seem to look up at nothing in particular earlier, he was speaking in Japanese, and unless we find someone who understands the language, we can't be sure that what he was talking to was some two-bit hallucination." Everyone, except Ryuzaki stared pointedly at the well-known linguist.

"Hey, don't look at me!" said House, scowling, "the only Japanese I know is 'hello', 'goodbye', 'yes', 'no', 'thank you', and 'I hope that's not your daddy at the door'!"

"I could tell you quite easily if you want." Said Ryuzaki, putting up his hand so as to be noticed. "If my name hasn't already told you, I can speak Japanese quite fluently."

"Wow," muttered House, his voice sarcasm drenched, "why didn't I think of that?" he then turned to face Ryuzaki, a pretentious smile on his face, "Say, Ryuzaki: are you Japanese?"

"No," answered Ryuzaki, his blank expression never changing, "but I do have one or two relatives who are…I think. Also, my line of work demands a necessary knowledge of many languages."

"Fine, smarty pants!" spat House, "What do you think he said, then?"

"Well, when he looked to his left, he was saying… 'Look at these two men, Ryuk!' and… 'This filth will die soon.'"

"Well, that's a comforting thought…" muttered Foreman, rubbing around his throat.

"So who is Ryuk? Is Ryuk a man or a woman? Is Ryuk someone who is alive now, or someone that died a long time ago?" Ryuzaki asked these questions, not as though he wanted to know himself, but as though he was giving them to someone else to consider, like he was helping an author create the many facets of a character whose very identity had not yet been shaped.

"Or maybe Ryuk's not even human?" asked House, the many cogs and gears in his mind whirring like spinning tops at such a pace that even Chase could hear them from the other side of the room.

"Why would that be?" asked Cameron. She didn't like where he was going with this.

"Well think. This kid comes from the land of the Rising Sun, the home of such things as Godzilla, the Behemoth, and Pokémon: if something human-like comes from the mind of a Japanese, chances are it's too good to be true, like big robots that actually work or naturally huge and perky breasts."

Once again, Cameron's intuition was right. Maybe she should quit her job and make her living as a clairvoyant instead? At least that way she wouldn't get pushed around so much.

"I completely agree with you, House-sensei. Now that we know that Light-kun _did_ hallucinate, perhaps now would be the time to study his behaviour and attempt to detect psychosis without the mood episodes? It could be possible that such a hallucination is feeding him the ideas, hence the onset of the manic episodes themselves." Ryuzaki gave a rare smile, almost rubbing his hands together.

"Fine," answered Foreman, now scratching at the back of his head, "Let's do that: without knowing what he's like when he's not in a manic episode, we can't begin to diagnose him correctly."

"So, does anyone remember where we put him?" asked House, raising his eyebrows sceptically. Knowing his team like he did, he knew that they wouldn't anyway.

The team paused for a moment to think, making humming sounds as they did. "Sorry," said Chase finally, "but if you remember, we were called to your office straight away, before any of us could find that out."

"Yeah," said Foreman, "you told us that the nurses would clean up for us."

"Don't worry: like with everything else, I've got control of this situation." With that, from his trouser pocket, Ryuzaki produced a flip-open cell phone, which he held aloft by the phone charm (which, incidentally, was a sweet looking strawberry with big manga-style eyes and a little circle for a mouth). Opening it up, and pressing a few buttons, he then held it by the top in his fingertips, showing the crew what was on the screen.

It was an accurate bird's eye view of the hospital, with a completely black background and simple white lines to indicate walls and rooms and such. On it, there were two little red dots, both inside a room each. "As you can see," said Ryuzaki, as though talking to a child, "this is a sophisticated tracking device, a higher quality than the sort parents use to keep an eye on their wandering teenagers. In this one, the red dots indicate the tracking devices attached to cell-phones: this one," he pointed to the red dot near the top-left of the screen, "indicates the dot that represents my cell phone. The other," he pointed to the dot near the bottom-right of the screen, "indicates the cell-phone that I gave to Light-kun's sister after the attack, and instructed for her to leave in her brother's room. If all has gone well, there should be a blue dot about here," he pointed a finger inside Light Yagami's room, "as I had instructed Light-kun's sister to place a tracker on her brother in something other than his clothes."

"So," said House, standing up, "either he hasn't got a tracker on him or he's somehow gone walkabouts."

"But… That can't be possible," said Chase, suddenly scared by the thought of a once again free madman, "I instructed the nurses to have him put in a straitjacket and tied to his bed by the ankles." It was now everyone else's turn to look sceptical. "We can't be too careful with this person." Chase concluded.

Suddenly, Cameron stood up from her seat and made her way out of the room hurriedly, like she had some place she'd much rather be. "Wait!" shouted Foreman, running to the door, "Where are you going?!"

"I'm going to find Light!" she yelled back, looking over her head as she continued to run.

"Light?" asked House, "But it's well-lit in here!" he spread out his arms, attempting to illustrate the point.

"You know who I mean!" she hollered back, now slowing down a little, "If he was able to get out of the straitjacket and ropes, who knows what sort of state he's in now!" Picking up speed again, Cameron wouldn't say anything else, instead turning a corner and disappearing down a flight of stairs.

***

_In Delaware today, it has been reported that the famous cat-breeder Miss 'Kitty' Jun has been seen on a ladder up a tree, apparently trying to fetch down her eldest prize-winning cat Tiddles. Unfortunately, a storm had been brewing during the attempted rescue, and lightning had struck the tree, killing the old cat instantly. After the storm had blown itself eastward, Miss Jun took the cat out of the tree inside a small urn. Thanks to this report, it is now official: people will indeed do anything to save money in the recession. _The anchorman gave a smirk: evidently his winning smile, and looked over to the woman standing a few feet away, _And now, _he said, _back to Kate with the weather. _

_Of course, _she said, giving a dazzling smile, _According to the meteorologists, the rain across New Jersey will be rather like a fat man on a blind date: Heavy, covering a wide area, and awkward at times. _

A small snort was heard among the bleeps of the heart monitor, followed by the crunches of solid flesh against even more solid teeth, and the slurps as the flesh released the streams of it's blood against the flesh-eater's maw. The body beside the flesh-eater lay still and silent among the steady beeps, unaware of what fate had in store for him.

The young man sat on the bed beside the recumbent figure of the John Doe Jersey (more commonly known as the 'Coma Guy'), a dark red apple in his right hand and his left hand wiping away the liquid that decorated his chin from the juiciness of the apple. Soon finished with the once solid fruit, he placed the core next to the fruit basket on the bedside table, not taking his eyes off the large cable TV, which – according to the patient's notes – was permanently fixed to play only shows on Fox as that was all the patient watched when slobbing about the house most days (and Light knew first hand about the TV's quality: he'd tried everything to switch it on to something better, like TV Asahi).

Right now, the TV was blaring Fox News, which was – like Sakura TV – famous for playing the stories that the better news shows wouldn't touch, at the same time taking opportunities to mock everyone and everything involved with a torrent of tasteless jokes. So accepting his lot, Light sat relaxing, with his feet up on the bed watching Fox news, while taking advantage of the free food available, and the fact that Ryuk wasn't there to steal his apples.

Suddenly, the door of the room burst open, a dark-haired woman leaning against the doorframe as she caught her breath. "There…you…are…" she puffed, the words taking effort to form after the arduous anaerobic exercise. Half-expecting the visit, Light barely flinched from his position on the bed, picking at the peeling skin on the back of his right hand. It was only when Dr Cameron had finally stood up straight, closed the door behind her and made to walk towards the bed that Light looked away from the screen, and began looking the Doctor in the eye with undisguised hostility. Frozen stiff at the basic but effective emotional display, Cameron didn't move from the spot, his breath catching in her throat. _If looks could kill…_she thought, almost distracted by the minor revelation if it wasn't for Light's eyes, which were now like glittering rubies beneath his hooded brow. They looked her up and down, giving her the feeling that the young man was mentally probing her.

Then, as quickly as it happened, Light averted his gaze, and Cameron's tense muscles relaxed. She bowed her head, once again making efforts to catch her breath again. When he looked back again, Cameron's body stiffened, now ready for the second onslaught of the probing sensation – but it didn't come. Instead, she was met with a handsome smile, and brown eyes that seemed to radiate warmth. "Hello," he said, bowing his head respectfully to her.

Cameron hesitated, and then bowed back, her hands on her lap in front of her, and her eyes politely downcast to the floor. Straightening back up, she saw that he was gently laughing, his smile still fixed on his face. "Don't worry," he said in his accented English, "there's no need to be so formal! I'm the patient after all, right?"

"Y-yes, of course." she replied, still hesitant. She was usually quite good in social situations, as her job demanded, but right now, the ever-flitting manner of her patient's behaviour caught her off guard, and she couldn't help but ready herself for the next dangerous change of heart. _Perhaps he's Bipolar…or has a split personality? _

Keeping that in mind, Cameron knew that she now had to be careful with what she said from now on, aware that the slightest mistake could prove life-threatening, considering what Light Yagami had proven himself capable of. Thankfully, Cameron's previous bowing mistake had been laughed off, but knows when this tolerance will disappear?

"So, er, Mr Yagami-"

"Please, call me Light." He said, interrupting innocently.

"Ok, Light, er, how did you escape? Why are you here?"

"Oh, you mean in this room?" Pretending he hadn't heard the first question, he let it slide, deciding the second one was more worth his time answering, "Well, Dr House comes here for his lunch often, doesn't he?"

"Er…Yes, but that's beside the point." Cameron did her best to disguise her astonishment at this declaration, trying to keep in mind that this boy also knew about House's drug-stealing habit from apparently nowhere, so it shouldn't be surprising that he'd know this: this would just be the Clairvoyance talking.

"Yeah," Light sighed, "I suppose, but this man did deserve it anyway."

"Oh, why _does_ he deserve to have strangers lie on his bed and to have his own food eaten off his own place by strangers?" Cameron's expression was quizzical now.

"Easy: Mr Joseph Denote here has a grudge against the Japanese and often discriminates against them racially. He deserves everything he gets."

"Okay…so why is he prejudiced against the Japanese?"

"Why are you asking me? Hell if I know." He gave a light laugh, and then reached for the fruit basket, taking out a golden-coloured apple, its skin blushed all over with pink. "Do you want an apple?" he asked, offering Cameron the fruit.

"Oh, er, no thank you. It wouldn't settle right with me knowing it isn't mine."

"Aw, come on," he teased, putting less distance between the woman and the fruit in his hand, "all _his_ food comes from over there." Light then pointed to the life support machine, from which a tube lead from the appliance into the man's stomach. "Come on," he said again, "it's a Pink Lady®!" he then waved the apple in front of her nose, making Cameron blush as pink as the fruit itself: with the nature of the offer, it sounded almost as though he was asking her for sex or something!

Knowing he wouldn't shut up unless she took it, she swiped the apple from his grasp, bit into it, and sat in an empty chair beside the bed. Light smiled down at her, like they had been friends for years.

"So," he said after a lengthy pause, "how did you know to find me here?"

"Well," she began, "when I saw that you'd somehow escaped from your room, I found the note on your bedside table." At this she pulled out a piece of paper of her lab coat pocket: it was the bottom half the note that Light had left earlier, the English writing still legible.

"_Dear Sir or Madam_," Cameron read, pausing to glance up at Light a moment, "_If you are wondering where I am, I have gone for a walk around the hospital. Please don't worry, as I feel fine, and will be back once I have had my exercise. Yours sincerely, Light Yagami_." Cameron place the piece of paper back in her pocket, before addressing the young man directly, "Light, I can understand that you would want to have a walk after being cooped up all the time like you most likely have, but after what had happened beforehand, do you really think that anyone would allow you to walk around alone and unnoticed?" Realising the full extent of his decision, and the possible consequences, Light hung his head, not allowing their eyes to meet.

"But…" Cameron sighed, "What I can't understand is how you actually managed to escape: you were strapped up in a strait jacket, and with your ankles tied to the bed for goodness sake!"

Light stayed silent for a moment deeply considering his answer before finally speaking up. "I just got loose, that's all." He said, not an ounce of expression or feeling in the answer. He obviously didn't want to say any more on that subject, and Cameron knew better than to push her luck harder than she already had. Both reluctant to break the tension, no of them took any notice of the heightening in pace of the heart monitor, the mechanic bleeps quickening unheard thanks to the TV, whose canned laughter now the loudest entity in the room – mechanic or otherwise.

When Light finally spoke again, his voice was low and morbid, as though he already knew the trouble that would be caused by what he would say next, "If it's okay," he said, averting his gaze, "I need to make a deal with you."

"Deal? What sort of deal?" Cameron asked, confused at such a request of a patient.

"I know something is wrong with me," he continued, "and so far, no one has been brave enough to get nearly me, never mind diagnose me. If you and your team of doctors can diagnose me in one week, then I will accept that and undergo every treatment necessary to get better. If you fail, however, then I will take the sorry excuse of your Doctor House's life as payment and your hospital will join the many of failures."

Cameron glared at Light in horror, unable to take in what he'd said. "B-but…what kind of a deal is that."

"A deal that every doctor so far has agreed to and subsequently failed at. This is really only fair."

"Okay…but wouldn't this deal be infringing on you becoming Kira?" Cameron, like the other doctors, had heard what Light had said earlier to House, and was confused as to why he'd want to put a stop to his own goal. _Yet again more evidence of a split personality, or black and white thinking._

"Indeed," Light replied, "but every time I come a step closer to realising these goals, the look on my family's face is enough to remind of the wrong I'm doing, of the pain I'm causing them. Until all of this happened, I was their perfect son: I was smart, good-looking, athletic, and a credit to everything they stood for until I snapped. Before then, they'd had no idea about what was going to happen." Light paused for a moment, and when Cameron made no effort to join in the conversation, he continued. "You know, while I was in hospital that first week, it was my sister's 15th birthday, and you know what happened on that day?"

Cameron shook her head, and let Light answer for her, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing: all Mom, Dad and Sayu did that day was spend the day in the waiting room, while doctors tried to sedate me. It was another week until my parents realised what day it was and that Sayu's birthday had gone unnoticed. She told me later that she had forgiven me for it, and that it would've been selfish of her if she'd mentioned her birthday, in case something happened to me as a result, but there was no mistaking her resentment.

"That why," Light said, closing his eyes, "I'm making this deal with you now. I know that I'm in my right mind now, and that right now I know that stopping myself like this is the right thing to do, but I can snap at any moment, and become Kira again. It's not a question of my sanity, but of obligation to my calling, and I'll need all of your help for me to get out of it."

"But Light," said Cameron, "as your doctor, I'm supposed to treat you no matter what, and I think it would be really irresponsible of me to allow a member of staff's life to be used for bartering with – even if he is a pain in everyone's behind."

"I'm sorry," Light sighed, "but it's either accept the deal and work on a one week deadline, while contending with a fifty percent chance of your dear diagnostician's death, or decline, and having no chance to cure me, with a hundred percent chance of the bastard's death." Cameron looked at him in shock, unable to understand how a young man in his right mind could say something so terrible in so calm and blunt a manner. _But that's it – he's not in his right mind, and for 6 months he never has. _

Looking again into his deep brown eyes, Cameron sighed again and offered her hand, "I accept the deal, and the accompanying terms." She said begrudgingly. She hated this deal, but knew it was the only way to keep the boy happy for as long as possible. In a way, House was now in her debt, after she'd just tossed up the perfect opportunity to permanently end his contract at the hospital, and there was nothing worse than knowing that House owed her – it would give House ample opportunity to 'owe' her something that they both know she would hate, and House could just say that he didn't know that it was something she hated, and no longer have to give her anything.

Smiling, Light shook her hand, his eyes – for a split second – glinting red in the light of the room. After that, Cameron and Light sat in silence, stewing in their identical sense of foreboding, ignoring the twitch in Joseph Denote's fingers, and the stirring in his blank expression, his closed eyes screwing up.

"I'm sorry," Light finally muttered, "I know you must hate me for making you make such a decision on your own: you should've at least have been given the opportunity to confer with your peers before handing Dr House up like a lamb to the slaughter."

"It's okay," she replied smiling, "at least now he's finally got a good incentive to do his job: his throat's probably still sore from the strangling you gave him earlier – he won't want to get on your bad side again." Light gave another gentle laugh at this, imagining the sight of such a bad man's untimely yet comical murder at his own hands. The laughter was infectious, and Cameron joined in too, both of them laughing loudly at bulging blue eyes and the blueing of once mocking lips.

Suddenly, Light's laughter turned into a horrified scream, and so did Cameron's as the previously comatose Joseph Denote leapt out of the bed, making to reach for the unassuming young man. On instinct, Light dodged out of the way, only to end up misjudging the force and falling off the bed instead, falling with his head on the floor. Giving a low groan, Light was soon helped up by Cameron, who'd been back on her feet as soon as she'd heard his thud against the floor.

Both standing up now, they found themselves looking up into the face of Joseph Denote, a young man who was probably in his late teens or early twenties, a heavy stubble covering the bottom-half of his heavy-set, half-burned face. His eyes, which were an unremarkable hazel colour, were wide with the surprise of a disturbed slumber, his parched lips mouthing words incoherently.

"Y-you…" he whispered, unable to take his eyes off Light's face, "Y-you-" but the rest of the sentence went unheard, for a fist began to bang from the other side of the door.

"House?" the disembodied fist asked, "Is that you in there? Isn't it a little early for lunch?"

"That's Doctor Wilson." Muttered Cameron to Light, reacting to the young man's horror-filled look and nervous stance, "He won't hurt you. Come in!" she yelled that last sentence for Wilson, and with a gentle opening of the door entered a brown-haired man, his face turning from its original jovial appearance to a look of both shock and anger at the sight of the supposed madman.

"You!" he yelled, taking a syringe out of his pocket, "What are you doing here?!" Seeing him, Light's eyes narrowed dangerously, the blood-red hue of them reminding all of the bloodshed that he was capable of causing. Taking the cover off the needle with his teeth, he ran towards Light, brandishing the syringe like a dagger. Scared, Light swerved wildly to the right, and – rather than hitting the neck, as was the original target – Wilson missed, sticking the needle instead in the middle of Light's back, cutting through his sweater, and making him hiss in pain. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Wilson sunk in the plunger slowly, taking the syringe out again in quick succession.

As the medicine took affect, Light felt his legs go numb, and they buckled underneath him, setting him to his knees. Looking up at Wilson, he gave him the most intimidating ruby-eyed look he could, before closing them again, allowing himself to give in for the moment.

"What are you doing letting a patient like that free?!" Wilson yelled at Cameron, his hands balled into fists, "Didn't you know what he can do? He almost killed House and Foreman earlier, and you're letting him walk around without even a _leash_?!"

"He was perfectly fine!" she yelled back, "I was about to take him back up to his room before you came in here and paralysed him from the waist down! Now, we've got to send in a wheelchair for him, and leaving him alone – paralysed or not – with a minor terrorist is not an option I want to take!"

"Fine, fine," Mr Wilson was backing off now, hands in the air in submission, "I'll stay here and you get the chair, okay?" Cameron left in a huff, slamming the door back behind her.

"Erm…" said Wilson, hands behind his back and pacing the room, "I'm sorry about the whole paralysis thing, okay? It will wear off in an hour at most." Light didn't say anything at first, preferring instead to stay silent and keep his eyes closed. He was biding his time now, concentrating entirely on how to exact revenge on the foolish doctor who had for the moment taken away his ability to walk.

After five minutes of this tense silence, Light spoke up, startling the pacing oncologist, "You and Dr House are friends, right?" he asked, his voice once again low and quiet, yet echoing at the same time. Wilson blinked at the unexpected question, unable to work out how such as this patient knew. Taking the silence as an affirmative, Light continued, "If you're wondering on how I'm going exact revenge, then don't worry: I'm not going to do anything more than what I have already outlined to Cameron-sensei. Ask her, and she will no doubt tell you everything."

"But…what are you going to do?" Before Light could answer, Cameron came in, wheeling in the chair in front of her. And, as Wilson lifted the patient up from under the arms and into the chair, Light looked Cameron dead in the eye, and uttered two words: "Seven days." And so, for the rest of that day – Day one of the deal – Light Yagami didn't utter a single word after that, and no one could persuade him otherwise.

**So how did you find the chapter? I know I put in a few silly jokes here and there, but I suppose it was just to liven up the slightly sombre mood of this chapter. And as for the 'seven days' thing, I'm sorry if that took the Mello but I just couldn't resist. As for the whole LightxCameron bonding thing (if it can be called that), I wanted it to go so many different ways, but I suppose this is the way that seemed to work best for the whole situation. As for the whole thing with Joseph Denote (a.k.a. Coma Guy), there is something planned for that, as there is for the deal that Light struck with Cameron. **

**And next time, on **_**Art of Subconscious Illusion**_**: Ryuzaki and the diagnostic team get closer to the truth, through the mention of one unexpected man; the truth behind Light's glowing eyes…and perhaps his growing bloodlust? **

**To find out more, please tune in for Chapter 6 of **_**Art of Subconscious Illusion**_**!**

**So please R&R, give suggestions on how to improve (and possibly your favourites for the Death Note Live Action cast) and thank you for sticking with me this long! Perhaps you'd like to read my other Death Note story, **_**Like Light to the Flies **_**while you're at it? Anyways, SEE YA!!!**


	6. Shattered By Broken Dreams

**Ahh! Sorry for the long wait for this, and sorry I'm not being so chatty now, but to be honest, this chapter is quite a bit longer than others, and I suppose you want to start this marathon of a chapter a.s.a.p. **

**So this is chapter 6: ENJOY!!!**

* * *

Chapter VI

Shattered By Broken Dreams

Once the patient had been returned back to his room and into the arms of his worried parents, Cameron and Wilson made their way back to House's office, where Drs House, Chase, Foreman, and the child-like Ryuzaki were waiting for them, all standing with their arm folded in annoyance. Apart from Ryuzaki of course, who was still crouching in his seat, now preoccupied with a new lollipop (now a maroon-coloured one – the cherry flavoured variety). Now in the calm of the office, and virtually away from danger, Cameron and Wilson spilled the beans on what had happened during their search for Light Yagami.

Once Cameron had finished telling the team about her and Light's little 'arrangement', each person reacted differently: Ryuzaki carried on licking at the lollipop, pretending that he didn't notice, the only sign that he reacted at all being the narrowing of his eyes behind the mask; Foreman began to look worried, drops of sweat falling from his brow; Chase covered his mouth with his hand; and House – who had every right to be worried at this point in time – just stayed where he was stood, preparing himself to make a witty comeback. "Seven days? Ha! I could diagnose this kid in _three _days, and with a hand tied behind my back!" There, ain't Daddy proud?

"Per-lease!" replied Foreman, somewhat shifting out of his previous trepidation, "Curing him is going to be harder for us than it is for a drug addict to give up, and even you couldn't do _that_ in three days!"

Suddenly, Chase burst out laughing, his body bent over double, "'you will die in seven days'…hey, Cameron: Hideo Nakata called, he wants his slogan back!"

"Shut up," she retorted, "this is really serious business. We have seven days to diagnose an extremely violent and mentally ill person, who thinks that he is Kira and probably has a split personality to boot. I mean, when we all first met him, he was going on about 'eradicating the filth' and killing criminals, but when he was talking to me on my own earlier, he was saying how he didn't want to be Kira anymore because he didn't want to hurt his family."

"Actually," said Ryuzaki, finally speaking up, "technically we have six days left, since today counts as Day One, and so far we have received the patient, whittled the diagnosis down to four conditions at the most, and have had one interview with him. As Cameron-sensei has mentioned during the explanation, it does not look like Light-kun is going to say anything else today, so until the start of Day Two – which is tomorrow – the best we can do now is just analyse the information we have with us now, and work off the symptoms of the four possible conditions we have to give us answers. Fortunately, we have a presumably adept Neurologist with us," Ryuzaki gave a nod to Foreman, "who will help us determine whether or not he could be suffering from such as Schizophrenia, which actually leaves a neurological mark in the brain, and can be detected in a scan."

"But it can't be Schizophrenia," replied Cameron, "he was perfectly coherent when he spoke to me, with no loss of train of thought or subject flow, and definitely no word salad. He wasn't catatonic, and there was very little affective flattening."

"However," said Foreman, "It might be possible that he is the paranoid type, and since only delusions and hallucinations need to be present for that, it could be possible. In that case, we'll have to put him on chlorpromazine to begin with."

"But how would that account for the major manic episodes, the psychosis, the distorted sense of self and worth, or even the clairvoyance!"

"Would it help if I told you that – according to his medical file – his brain scan showed a perfectly healthy brain, and that there is a possibility that the clairvoyance is not a symptom, but most likely a cause of the illness?" Offered Ryuzaki.

"No!" yelled Cameron and Foreman in unison.

"Dammit…" muttered House, "we're already doing Tailors as it is, and your arguing isn't helping!" Cameron and Foreman stopped yelling as a result, and Ryuzaki jumped off his seat and walked up to House, his mouth stretched in a smirk of curiosity.

"Tailor…by that, do you mean…_Lind. L. _Tailor?"

"Oh, that guy?" returned House, turning to face Ryuzaki, "Yeah, I'm talking about him. He was idiotically killed by Kira, and used as a pawn by L. Yeah I remember him: I was in Tokyo that day when he died, and saw it happen on the big Fanasonic® TV in the town centre. Ever since then, we use his name as our own little saying."

"Oh, what does it mean?"

"It's when you take a risk," supplied Wilson, "where the odds are completely against you, and it's highly likely that you'll end up dead as a result, yet you take the risk anyway, and damn the consequences."

"A 'Full Tailor' is when you _do_ die as a result of said consequences." Continued Foreman, wiping his brow, "Just like what'll happen to House if we don't get a diagnosis in time."

"So Lind. L Tailor was killed by Kira and used as a pawn by L…do any of you know what else he was famous for?" asked Ryuzaki, ignoring Foreman's previous comment and looking at each of the diagnosticians. It was probably a hopeful look, but with only his mouth on view, and the rest of his face covered by the mask, it was hard to tell. When everyone else shook their heads, Ryuzaki sighed, and muttered to himself (something like 'and they call themselves diagnosticians…'). "So that's no one?" Once again, they shook their heads.

"Let me explain." At this, Ryuzaki got back onto his chair, and began sucking absent-mindedly at the cherry lollipop, "For all of today that we've seen Light Yagami, it seems that his eyes glowed red on a minimum of three separate occasions: when he caused havoc at the Nurses' station; when he first met Cameron-sensei; and when he first met Wilson-sensei. Now, the only possible common factor linking these three events, is that each time the eyes turned red, Light-kun was in the presence of people he had never met before: In other words, if we take what Light-kun said as true, then he was using his clairvoyance as a way to – as he might say – 'judge' people, which would explain why he was so hostile towards House-sensei, and so kind towards Cameron-sensei. Therefore, his power and his eyes are linked." Ryuzaki's thoughts seemed to trail off, and he went silent for a few moments.

"Ermm…" began Cameron, "perhaps the eyes show that he is using his power, like a sort of indicator?"

"Brilliant deduction, Cameron-sensei. Those were my thoughts exactly." Extolled Ryuzaki, giving her a slight smile. "However, it was difficult for me to think of a scientific explanation that would conveniently explain this and link the power and the eyes together. At first, I thought that it could really be the work of Kira and Shinigami, as it was with the Kira case – in which case it would be beyond science – but then House-sensei mentioned Lind. L. Tailor at the right moment, and then everything seemed to make sense with him in the picture."

"So?" asked Foreman, tired of Ryuzaki's non-stop drivelling, "Why would a death-row inmate who got killed by Kira help make sense of this case? Why is he as famous as you say he is?"

"He is famous," replied Ryuzaki, "because – of all things – he was a scientist."

"Was he, by any chance, a _mad_ scientist?" asked House mockingly, giving his own evil laugh.

"Well, yes and no: he wasn't 'mad' to begin with, but, rather as a result of his most famous finding, of which could be linked with our patient."

"And that finding is…?" asked Wilson, somewhat agitated at Ryuzaki's habit of withholding information, and somewhat miffed of the infrequency of his dialogue in this conversation.

"Hmmm…" Ryuzaki paused once again, allowing his team's curiosity to stew a little longer, "Have any of you heard of a condition called 'Lindlism'?"

"Well, since none of us are as much of a clever clogs as you are," said House, "you're going to have to explain it to us, and since that may take a while…" House whipped around to face Foreman, now addressing him, "have the kid put on chlorpromazine: It works with schizophrenics, and if you're right, then my neck's off the dotted line. Besides, it's sedating enough to put him out of business for a while." Foreman just stared at him, unsure if he'd heard him correctly.

"Yeah, you heard me right: Go give him the syrup!" And with that, Foreman left House's office and went down to the Pharmacy, leaving House, Cameron, Chase, Wilson and Ryuzaki to talk in please.

***

Barely half an hour after Cameron and Wilson had dropped Light off back in his room, Dr Foreman entered, seeing Light laying on his bed, the strait jacket on his lap as he drank a glass of water, a reading book in his left hand (_Sherlock Holmes_, English edition). His mother was sat in one chair beside the bed, twiddling her thumbs while his Father stayed stood up, pacing the room. His little sister was lounging in another chair, a DS in one hand and the little stylus in another. Occasionally, she'd look up, and try to read a snippet of Light's book, but at every such instance, he just closed the book on one of his fingers, and continued when she returned her attention to the DS.

At the sound of Foreman opening the door, everyone looked up from their activities, apart from Light, who continued his reading. When his father noticed, he took the hardback out of Light's hand and muttered something to him in Japanese, forcing him to look up at the visiting doctor. Once again, Light's eyes shone dark red at the sight of the black doctor, making the hairs on the back of Foreman's neck stand on end. Although it was the second time that day that he'd been subject to the young man's mental probe, he was still not prepared for the feeling of nakedness that came with it, like nothing was a secret anymore.

It was only when Light finally looked away, and preoccupied himself with the back of his hand and the peeling skin there that Foreman was finally able to explain his unexpected visit. "Good afternoon," he said, "and I am Doctor Foreman. I will be the neurologist in charge of your son's health."

"Thank you, Dr Foreman, we appreciate your help." Said the father, delivering a speech that he'd delivered so many times before to other doctors. Hastily, he took hold of Foreman's hand, shaking it briskly before introducing himself. "My name is Soichiro Yagami, and this is my wife Sachiko, and my daughter Sayu. Obviously, you already know my son Light." At this point, his blushed a little, coughing slightly in embarrassment of the event in which Light and Foreman 'met'.

Foreman allowed himself a little smile at this: Soichiro Yagami seemed to be a very brisk man who didn't like to waste time, and for that, Foreman was thankful. "Yes, of course, and I am glad to say that great progress has been made in finding out a diagnosis, of which could be any of four conditions. At the moment, the one that seems to fit best is paranoid type Schizophrenia, and while the clairvoyance is as of yet unexplained, the answer to that will come in due time." As Foreman said all of this, he stood in his trademark practitioner pose: Back straight, with hands behind his back and the obligatory squeaky-clean smile, like everything had a possibility of working out in the end.

"Schizophrenia? Is that all?" asked Sachiko, her once dull face lighting up with relief.

"It could be." Foreman answered, "Of course, the nature of the condition means that we can't know for certain unless further tests are carried out, but so far, it's the best diagnosis we have." _Translation: It's the only one we have, and the only reason we're pushing for this one is because no one so far is bothered to come up with any better. Otherwise known as 'Lies Doctors Tell You and Get Away With'._

"What do you mean you can't know for certain?" asked Soichiro, a hint of outrage in his voice, "Are you trying to tell us that your staff are so incompetent, that the best they can do is come up with an easy option and stick to it just so that they can go home early thinking that they've done something remotely worthwhile?" _You could say that..._

"I'm sorry, Mr Yagami, but the fact is that no symptom of Schizophrenia is characteristic of the condition, and while we have no records of recent brain scans, or the possibility of substance abuse, we cannot know for certain at the moment. This is why I require that your son takes chlorpromazine: It's an effective treatment of schizophrenia, so if Light does have the condition, we'll know we're already on the right track."

Knowing he was right, Soichiro gave up easily, sighing deeply. Now that he knew he had their full respect, Foreman took a small bottle of chlorpromazine syrup and a 5ml medicine spoon out of his lab coat pocket and set it on the serving tray, which stood at the end of Light's bed – the bed position where it'd be out of the way, yet close enough to reach when needed. "Now, all Light needs to do is take two 5ml doses of this every 12 hours. Considering it is 12.00pm now, you can give him the two doses now, and another at either midnight or any time close enough before he goes to sleep. Can I trust that you do that without my supervision?"

Soichiro nodded, and so did Sachiko and Sayu. Light, however, didn't appear to be paying any attention, alternating between picking at his hand and scrutinizing the lampshade on the bedside table. "Is that all?" asked Soichiro, not unkindly.

"Yes," replied Foreman, "and I'm sure you all know what to do if you need me at all." It wasn't a question, so as soon as he saw Sachiko reach for the bottle, Foreman left without another word, closing the door behind him.

He had barely walked a few paces out of the room when he felt a tug at his lab coat from behind. Turning around, he saw Sayu standing there, a beseeching look upon her face. "Excuse me," she asked, "but I wanna share something with you." As the girl was only 15 years old, and a little short for her age, Foreman had to bend down on one knee to talk to her, and he did so, allowing them both the luxury of seeing eye-to-eye.

"What is it?" he asked, using his trusting-friend voice, "Do you want to say thank you or anything? Because I'm sure you can say that to me in front of your parents no problem."

"It's not that." She answered, blushing slightly, "It's just that I've few things to say about Light that you might wanna know."

"Oh?"

"I know I'm not smart or anything, but I'm sure they're important, and I wanna help in any way I can." Like with Light, her accent wasn't very pronounced, but it did leave an almost sweet edge to her words.

"Can you tell me them, please?" Foreman asked.

"Oh…er…of course." Clearly, Sayu hadn't expected her request to be accepted so easily. Clearing her throat, she explained. "You see, Light has always wanted to be a detective like Dad, and ever since he was in high school, if we ever had a problem that needed solving, or a little secret that had kept hidden, Light could figure it out, no matter what, and he'd even explain to us how he figured it out." Sayu sighed at this point, "He was so smart, and everything was so easy for him. But, near the end of his senior year, he used to stay up in his room and study for getting into college. At first, I thought that was so… until he slowly stopped speaking to us, until the only time he spoke was when he told us he'd come home from school or when he was forced to at the dinner table. We all thought that he was just being a normal teenager, and that he was probably missing Dad, who was always at work…but I'm sure it's not that."

Foreman had listened intently the whole time, and when she paused, he finally answered, "So? What do you think it is?" he asked, still using his friendly voice.

"Well…I've been reading a few leaflets, and I think he's got anhedonia." As Foreman heard this revelation, his eyes widened, and, without further thought, he enveloped Sayu in a bone-crunching hug, before running off down the corridor, the tails of his lab coat flapping in the breeze behind him. "Thank you!" he yelled from over his shoulder, leaving the poor girl more bewildered than before they'd even met.

_Anhedonia…the inability to experience common human pleasure…_Foreman thought, running through a pair of doors and turning down a corridor,_If he really is as smart as they say he is, then he would have struggled to find a worthy challenge, which would cause a breakdown in the Brain's Reward System, hence the Anhedonia, and perhaps the reason he is Kira! Plus, it's a symptom of Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, and Schizoid Personality Disorder! _

Now knowing this, Foreman couldn't wait to get back to the team!

It was now coming to the end of Day 1 of the Deal, and even though so much ground had been covered, and although they were so close to the conclusion, that conclusion seemed so far away.

***

Day 2

The day dawned bright that morning, and thanks to yesterday's progress, the team were at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital bright and early, excited for the prospect of another job well done. Even House was happy that morning, and that usually wasn't possible: thanks to his joviality, many rumours had spread around the hospital speaking of Cuddy spiking the Miser's tea, and of stronger medication in stronger doses – perhaps even marijuana – before the clock could even strike 8:30am.

"Good morning, ever-loving care-givers!" Was what he'd greeted the Night-Shift nurses with as they left the hospital and passed him in the main entrance, the once-grouchy MD practically skipping and whistling as he clocked in. He'd even made a move to put on his lab-coat before he remembered himself, put it back on the dusty hook slowly, before walking to his office with a resumed whistle and hobble. It had been nearly ten years ago the last time he did that, and no one was sorry to see it again.

He walked into his office to find Foreman, Chase and Cameron rifling through their paperwork at the table, eager to get it out of the way before their 'proper' job began – that is, the curing of Light Yagami. They didn't even look up when he walked through the door, maybe because House was whistling, and none of them were even familiar with that sound. Sure, they'd heard him play the piano and rock hard on a guitar, but whistle? Never!

Staring at their hard work, they tried desperately to ignore the whistling sound that hovered over their ears: it may have been a good thing that House was so happy, but the fact that his act of whistling had gone unpractised for a decade, and that the supposedly cheerful sound had suffered as a result was dire...if fact, come to think of it, so was the fact that House was actually happy! Surely it could only bode ill-tidings? Maybe...he'd done away with Ryuzaki?

Thankfully, though, their exaggerations were just that – exaggerated. Perhaps it was just the fictitious marijuana talking? "So, fellow-partners-in-care-giving?" Asked House, slouching into his chair, leaning his cane against the chair and putting his feet up, "Any updates?"

Without even looking up, Chase responded with a deep expelling of air, before continuing, "Nope, nothing. As far as we know, he's still fast asleep in his room."

"Yeah," replied Foreman, wiping his forehead, "I suppose yesterday's mental mayhem tuckered him out a little...and then some." A pause ensued, and House stared expectantly at each of them, eyebrows raised.

"So..." House began, "when you're happy and you know it..."

"Check the medical file?" asked Cameron, putting down the paper work, and taking Light Yagami's medical file from underneath her chair. Chase and Foreman followed suit and began poring over them: Thanks to yesterday's events, they had only had the chance to take mere glances at the medical file.

"Yes, now check for anything odd, anything out of place: Foreman, check through his previous brain scans; Chase, check through the list of previous symptoms and Cameron…" he paused for a moment.

"Yes?" she asked, expectantly.

"Check for…everything else."

"What? Why do I get the_ short straw_? I was the one who trailed after Light when he went missing, while you all stayed here and had a cosy chat, as I remember!"

"Yeah? Well you should've thought about that before you picked up the_ short end_ of my wipe board markers!" House glared at Cameron with an overplayed, narrow-eyed accusing look.

"But I never used them!" she half-yelled, horrified at the reproach.

"And I still think that was the right thing to do. Now get checking on the file! Maybe you can see if the darling boy was _diddled_ by _Daddy_…" And with that, and a disgusted look on her face, Cameron returned to the file, trying her best to curry the favour of her boss. _Maybe, if I find anything of worth, he'll let me use the markers!_

Now that Cameron and House's conversation had shifted towards its uneasy end, the team sat and stood in silence poring over the files for unchecked anomalies in what could be mistaken for a perfect person. This silent henceforth stood for an unrecorded amount of time – really five minutes, but to the team, it felt longer – before a plain staff nurse slowly slid open the door and poked her head inside. Coughing slightly to alert the doctors, she delivered her message, "Excuse me, Dr House, but a man by the name of 'Ryan Willoughby' says he is here to assist you." Her voice was quiet and uncertain, as though unsure of whether or not she could trust the older man with the full presence of her body from behind the glass shield. "He's also told me to tell you that he's brought a Miss Eve Albemarle with him. Apparently she has an appointment with you and one of your patients."

"Fine," House said, not bothering to look up from his file, "tell them to come in whenever. Now go before my cane makes you."

Her head bent, she made to leave before she remember the second reason for her presence at House's office "Oh, and before I go, I have a message for Dr Cameron." Cameron looked up at this, half-smiling encouragingly for the staff nurse's benefit.

"Right," she said, "could you tell me?" The politeness of Cameron's tone threw the staff nurse off for a moment and she stammered in her renewed shyness.

"Um, yes, a Mr Joseph Denote is being discharged today, and he wanted you to deliver these to the young patient who visited him yesterday." With that, she disappeared behind the sliding door, and reappeared, producing a trolley laden with a basket of fruit and a large bouquet of red and white long-stemmed roses, the flowers arranged to give the impression that they were all of a flattering shade of dark pink, and the arrangement wrapped in crystalline white paper, and finished with a red bow. Cameron's mouth seemed to have dropped to the table, her eyes wide with surprise at the spectacle.

Suddenly remembering herself, she closed her mouth, gave a hasty nod, and replied to the staff nurse.

"Yes, of course, I'll make sure that Mr Yagami gets them." Nodding her understanding, the nurse turned around and left the office, leaving behind the beautiful gifts of fruits and flowers.

It was barely a minute after they returned back to their files again that Cameron put her hand up, motioning for the others. "Look here," she said, pointing to a line on the first page, where the medical history was printed. "According to this here," she continued, the others crowding around her, "Light was actually born a twin."

"You mean his sister Sayu is actually his _twin_ sister?" asked Chase, giving Cameron a puzzling look.

"Personally, I wouldn't have guessed: Isn't she a bit stumpy to be his womb-mate?" asked House rhetorically, swinging his cane.

"No, of course not," said Cameron, shaking her head. "His sister is three years younger than him. No, he has a twin brother...or rather, _had_ a twin brother..."

"So where is this guy?" Asked Foreman, his brow creased with concern and confusion. "Light may be crazy and homicidal, but that's no reason to leave the twin at Grandma's and take the more vulnerable little sister along instead."

"I was getting to that: You see, the twin brother died when they were 8 years old."

"Was it due to a genetic disease?" asked Chase, trying to make a grab for the file. However, Cameron was too fast and she snatched it from underneath his nose.

"Was it some freakishly tragic accident linked to a genetic disease?" Demanded Foreman.

"Was he just plain clumsy?" Asked House half-heartedly, not nearly as excited as he should be: After all, to him, a dead kid was a useless kid as far as his investigations went (it's not like he or she can tell him where it hurts or anything).

"No," she answered, her eyes seeming to space out in a strange daydream, "He was-"

Suddenly, a small beep issued from House's pocket, and Cameron was forever interrupted. Everyone else went quiet, leaving a tense silence except for the continuous bleeping.

"It's our Pookie... suddenly... he doesn't feel so cute..."

***

Sure enough, Chase and Cameron arrived breathless at Light's room, their eyes wide at the sight that met their eyes: Sachiko, Soichiro, and Sayu were around Light's bed, the positioning of their bodies meaning that Chase and Cameron could neither see nor get through to see Light. They could hear him though: His breathing was laboured and came in short, ragged bursts, and occasionally, he'd give a moan of pain that would strangle its way out of a bitten lip.

Finally, pushing their way through the worried family, Chase and Cameron stared in horror at the spectacle that lay before them. Light was in bed, and he wasn't acting crazy, but somehow this seemed worse: He wasn't laying down in his bed or losing consciousness, like they'd expect him to be by the sound of his breathing, but crouched up in a ball like a crow, his knees brought up to his chest and his contorted form balancing precariously on his feet, his shoulders rounded and hands rested on his knees. Purple bruises like bags had formed underneath his eyes from lack of sleep, and these eyes were half-lidded and fogged dark with the pain, the pupils darting from side to side in dreading suspicion and his mouth contorted into a line that turned down at the corners, like a horizontal rip in clothing thanks to the lips that had be bitten to shreds while slowly turning blue.

Had it not been such a terrible circumstance, Chase and Cameron might have been on the floor laughing – the pose and appearance was just too reminiscent of their own boss Ryuzaki.

They heard footsteps behind them, and in entered Foreman carrying a syringe of something or other. Suddenly, Light's expression changed from one of pain to one of utter revulsion. His whimpers turned to growls and his bleeding lip almost gave a narrow smirk. "You!" he said, his voice a mere growl in his throat, his eyes glowing dangerously with fury.

Taking a deep breath, Foreman stepped forward, grabbing hold of Light by the shoulder and pulling him downwards onto the pillows, the young man still keeping his distorted shape. Light tried to struggle, but failed as Foreman inserted the syringe into his too-tense arm, making Light cry out. "You'll pay!" he managed to snarl, before being quietened by arriving staff nurses, and hidden from view by their presence.

"So," muttered Cameron, stepping back a little, "I suppose it's not Schizophrenia, then."

* * *

**And that was chapter 6 of The Art of Subconscious Illusion. As you can see, I've managed top pack a lot into this chapter, and quite a few things have been discovered, so I hope you paid attention. If you didn't, then oh well, it's not the end of the world. ****At the point of finishing this chapter, I found it really hard to find a good chapter title for this one, so I went with "Shattered By Broken Dreams", for the effect that the chlorpromazine had on Light (it's easy to see that he didn't get any sleep that night ;P). So that's my lame reason: Please, honourably and respectfully, suck it up. **

**As I haven't got a lot of time on here before Ophelia Davis shoves me off, this is all I can say for now. There are a few new things coming up, but you'll have to go on my profile to find out. **

**So, please R&R, and SEE YA!!!**

**P.S. Note for all of you: If you want a good song for your LightxL yaoi AMVs, then I would suggest "Something in Your Mouth" by Nickleback. Please, listen to it, and make of it what you will (lollipops come to mind, though). **


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